Certainties
by writerfan2013
Summary: Companion fic to Declarations. Joan tells the story of the trip to London, the encounter with Moriarty and how saying nothing does not mean that nothing is meant. Read Declarations first or this will seem very odd. This is only short, created in answer to some requests from those who read Declarations. It features fierce Joan! I hope you like it! -Sef
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note**: the person speaking here is very much kick- ass Joan. As one reader put it (brilliantly!)- this is 'tossing my hair and casually saving your lives' Watson. It's not a voice I've used for Joan before but it works with this story. She's fierce! Hope you like it. -Sef

* * *

Let me start out by saying one thing. He is my friend. My best friend. I never met anyone like him before and I don't expect I will again. He drives me crazy. He is impossibly brilliant and ultimately fragile. He is stubborn but generous. He is untidy and yet meticulous. He is tough, strong, capable of cruelty towards his enemies, yet vulnerable, and gentle with the weak and those downtrodden by life. He is amazing.

OK, that's more than one thing. That's a lot of things. They're all true. But I missed the main thing. The thing that's a little hard to say. The thing he waves away as if it doesn't exist. He knows it I'm sure. But it embarrasses him, it shows him, he thinks, in a poor light, and so he ignores it. I guess he doesn't know what to do with it.

Yeah, right. The thing. I still haven't got to it. But I will. I must. Because it's relevant.

The thing is I love him. As a friend. Yes. And as a man. Oh yes. And he cares for me too, in his own way. I suppose he wouldn't call it love. But either way. There it is. We've never done anything with it, just let it sit on the couch with us, among the takeout boxes, in between the locks on the rack, dripping down with the honey from the roof.

And that's how it is when this starts.


	2. Chapter 2

One day. _One day_. Less than twenty-four hours in London and I am yelling at Sherlock for lying to me about why we are here, about how we are here - posing as a married couple when the only thing stereotypically marital about us is his totally arrogant assumption about how his ideas are never wrong - for putting us in danger, especially putting him in danger, because Irene Adler is free and Sherlock has brought us to the very hotel where he thinks she is.

"You need to tell me these things, Sherlock," I say. I am in the glittering white sitting room of our five-star suite at the Shangri La hotel, at the top of the Shard. The place is brand new, the plastic cling just removed, the carpets bristling with untrodden plush.

He has been pretending to kiss me in the elevator, for the benefit of our pretense at marriage. I gave him an elbow in the ribs and the threat of a knee somewhere softer. If you're going to kiss me then kiss me. Don't pussyfoot around saying it is for the cameras, cameras I am not even certain those elevators have.

So I am mad at him for the Irene thing and mad at him for embarrassing me and also terrified he is going to run off and do something stupid - like confront Irene.

None of these emotions is likely to help you win an argument with Sherlock.

My venting has gotten through to him. He backs down, looks around the room with hunted eyes. "Maybe I _will _have a shower," he says.

I go into the bathroom and check it out. No windows. We are fifty floors in the sky anyway. "OK. Do not disappear."

He gives me a mocking salute and I growl in frustration.

While he is there - water running - I ponder our weird, in other words, standard day:

Sherlock's aunt died. That's why we are here. For the funeral. But now Sherlock says he thinks it is not a coincidence: Irene free, his aunt's funeral calling him to London.

He thinks Irene killed his aunt.

He shows no emotion, hides it all. The only crack in his armour came today when -

When he spoke to his cousin. His namesake. Another Sherlock.

The idea of this is mind-blowing. Two of them. And they both do the same work. Is England big enough for two such egos?

This London Sherlock is different. Taller, black hair, blue eyes. Graceful. - Beautiful. But spiky. Hostile. If my Sherlock hides his emotions behind a mask of indifference, this one keeps his behind a terrifying exterior designed to intimidate. The only person able to put up with it seems to be his flatmate, John, a nice guy, somewhat put upon but mysteriously able to rein in his partner. I must ask him how he manages that.

The merciless scorn of Sherlock's cousin, though. If pretense of indifference is in proportion to the felt vulnerability of the pretender - and in my opinion it is - then Sherlock's cousin feels even more at risk than Sherlock himself. He has a secret, something he is... Not ashamed of. A secret which could harm him.

But he, too, is brilliant - that much is clear. Does he suspect anything about the death of his aunt?

Sherlock, my Sherlock, was irritated by his cousin. The only glimpse of a possible camaraderie between these two very similar men, was in the shock they shared at inheriting their aunt's fortune.

My Sherlock, now, is rich. I have no idea what that will mean.

I listen vaguely to the water going in the shower and think that if we can get Irene back behind bars quickly, I might have time to see some of London. I've never visited before. I just have to make sure Sherlock doesn't do anything stupid.

When I find that he has crawled out of the suite between the sofas while I watched TV, I have to take a lot of deep breaths. Then I text his cousin.

_Your aunt was murdered. JW_

_You're not John. Who are you?_

_Joan. You met me today. I work with your cousin. J_

_The surgeon. I know she was murdered. SH_

_Do you know why? J_

_Tell me. SH_

_Because a woman we caught six months ago has escaped from jail and is looking for Sherlock. J_

_Give me facts. SH_

_I just did. Can you help me stop Sherlock doing something stupid? J_

_Probably not. But the idea of trying has cheered me up immensely. Meet me tomorrow. SH_

_OK. You do know you text exactly how you speak? J_

_Yes. SH_

_Where shall I meet you? J_

_Lose my cousin and we can talk properly. SH_

_How do you suggest I do that? J_

I walked right into that one. I can almost hear his chuckle as the reply buzzes in my phone.

_You provide a welcome distraction. SH_

I sigh.

Fine. I need his help, before Sherlock gets himself hurt.


	3. Chapter 3

The dark haired man lounging opposite me never lets go of his phone. The thing is welded to his hand at all times, his slender fingers curled around it. When he uses it to explore possible Moriarty locations, the pads of his fingers stroke and slide on the phone's sleek surface like caresses - delicate but efficient caresses. I realise I am staring when he glances up and gives me a sardonic smile from under his lashes. _My god he is gorgeous_. He knows it, though, which lessens the effect. Male beauty should be unconscious. I can't stand a man who spends an hour in front of the mirror before leaving the house.

"Problem?" he asks in a deliberate baritone. Here is a man who uses his whole body in order to seduce. Not, I realise, for sex, but for information. That voice. It is a fact that both men and women respond to a man with a deep voice, reading it at an animal level as masterful and virulent - a leader, a sire of strong babies.

"Only your conscious use of your physical qualities to intimidate and seduce," I say.

He grins suddenly and his whole face changes. Ten years drop away and I see a boy, an open-hearted boy who can laugh and enjoy life. Then the shutters come down again and he is serious. "It's useful," he says. He looks at his phone. He has been texting someone this whole time. I squint and see John's photo, tiny, next to messages. John is grinning too, in the picture.

Maybe John has a picture of Sherlock with his boyish smile on his phone. That would explain a great deal.

"So where is she?" I ask. I have given details of the case so far - a presumed escape, the death of the aunt, the confirmation that she is in the hotel. I also mentioned that she was Sherlock's former lover and current nemesis. His cousin liked that. He seems to be a man who would relish a nemesis.

Actually, with his general total lack of charm, it is surprising he doesn't already have one.

"There are a number of locations which have already been on my radar," he says. "I need to check them out. It will take a while though."

_Yeah, especially if you keep texting John._ I sigh. He is doing this at his own pace. Like all geniuses, he will not be rushed. And already I trust him, trust his process. Despite Sherlock's scathing remarks about him, I know that this man will solve the problem, and, I hope, keep Sherlock out of Moriarty's clutches. "OK. I'm going to the bathroom."

I grab my purse and head for the tiny bathroom in the back of the cafe. I am thinking about Sherlock as I wash my hands and don't register the door bursting open until two men barge into totally the wrong bathroom.

The men use my ethnicity against me as they drag me away. One of them has his hand over my mouth and I cannot yell, _I am an American citizen!_ The kitchen workers look petrified. Some of them hide under the steel counters. They are working here illegally. But I cannot think about that. I get one of my kidnappers in the eye with a blast from my fragrance bottle, then he dashes it out of my hand onto the floor. Now we all reek of it and they are still getting me out of the back door of the cafe and into a van.

I am unbelievably stupid. And worse, Sherlock does not know where I am.

* * *

Twelve Kleenex. Eleven scrawls of my initials, an affirmation, a cry for help, a trail for Sherlock to find and follow.

One tissue, the last one, and the final traces of colour from my lips, and I put his initials instead of my own. An impulse. A tribute to him. A yell of the things I might say if he were here. His name, the only thing in my life I need to declare: _Sherlock_.

The letters are a cry, an embrace, an apology, a wish. I long for him fiercely in these last moments before the van doors bang open and the men with guns drag me away. Helping him has helped me and now I will never get the chance to say thank you.

It gets worse. The men bring me to some old industrial building, high ceiling, painted floor, green machinery shoved against the side walls, maybe some kind of pumping station - and make excited phone calls as they hold me up, bruising my shoulders. I kick one of them in the shins and he stamps on my foot. But they have clearly been given orders not to hurt me because as the door opens at the end of the vast room, they stand me up a little straighter, hiss at me to stop whimpering over my crushed toe, and look guilty.

I snarl at them and watch as a slim woman with efficiently coiffed blonde hair crosses the floor to us. She is wearing a faux military jacket, jodhpurs and black boots. A classic look - for a nemesis. She is neat and precise in her movements, and she is smiling a witchy smile at me. "Moriarty," I say, and she laughs.


	4. Chapter 4

Yeah, dealing with the ex. Everyone has baggage but naturally Sherlock has more, he has nemesis-level baggage: deeper, nastier, vengeful and cold. Moriarty was threatened by the presence of me in his life. I guess I might be flattered by that. If only she wasn't a murderer whose good opinion means diddly to me.

I mean, I get it: she shows up as Irene, amazed and impressed that Sherlock has fixed himself and is all better. Irene, so-called, is ready to re-insert herself into his life and play more of her games with him, on him, all over him. Then she sees me. No smiles, I notice. I am incompatible with her imagined chain of events. I have to go.

And so help me, I offer to go. I stand in our kitchen and ask Sherlock if three is a crowd. My brain is racing with where would I live, who will look after him when he is looking after her, but still I ask. And he looks straight at me the way he almost never does, his eyes the colour of innocence, and tells me this place is my home and I am not to go anywhere.

Moriarty must have had a fit. I am an impediment. If I won't go, then she will have to sweep Sherlock away from me.

She didn't kill him when she had the chance. Not in London, not here. She fed him some story about his beautiful mind.

Ok. It's plausible. If anyone has a thing of wonder for a brain, it's Sherlock. But still. I don't buy it. She's a murderer, remember. Mere artistic appreciation would surely not stop her meeting her monthly death quota. For that, you would need a strong reason. An unanswerable reason. There's only one reason that matches. Love. They never said it, never told each other. (He told me.) But lack of words doesn't mean lack of love, especially when the evidence stacks up all around. A lunch date, a message? _Please don't make me kill him._ Yeah, right.

So I deduce her. Sherlock and I work as a team and defeat her.

She hates me.

I give her a little smile now, not my usual style but I chose not to triumph over her the last time. She will not beat me now, I think, but I am trembling. I have to hide my fear, is all.

She loves Sherlock. Or she did. As she looms over me, slaps me around a little, tries to make me cry (unlucky!)- I get the feeling she is not as sweet on Sherlock as she used to be. Maybe all the jail time has faded the bloom of affection. I was brought up not to, but now I spit in her face. Hey, she is probably going to kill me. What's a little saliva?

She is livid. Smacks me again. So what? I don't even flinch. If she thinks she is going to use me to lure Sherlock here, she is wrong. She had better kill me. I won't be an Achilles heel for Sherlock. No way will I let him trade himself for me - which he obviously planned to do last night. Uh-uh. No way. Not going to happen. She wants to dominate me, dominate him, so tedious.

And now here she is in a literal power complex, vowing to get me, get Sherlock, end us.

She handcuffs me and has the men take me to a small room where, interestingly, there are a lot of very new, somewhat improvised-looking controls alongside the antique ones. Pressure gauges and such. And pipes leading back into that engine hall. Pipes with plumber's tape wrapped carefully around every joint.

Water doesn't require that kind of precaution. If water leaks you just mop it up.

Clearly Moriarty has something far more lethal in mind for me, and for Sherlock when he turns up.

I squeeze my eyes shut and attempt telepathy. Do_ not follow me here. Or do, yes, please, rescue me, but do not negotiate with her. Do not come in here because then she will have you. Get the police, get your cousin, do not engage with Moriarty_.

But Sherlock and this woman have a long and intense history. I know he will come, I know he will try to save me by sacrificing himself and I can only look around and try to work out what I can do to stop Moriarty before she stops him forever.

Yeah, exes can be a pain.


	5. Chapter 5

I enlist John's help with the gas. We switch the input and output feeds and soon the poison will pour invisibly into the observation room while we in the engine hall get nothing but air. I would normally ask Sherlock for help, but Moriarty is watching him, cannot stop watching him, whereas John and I are invisible to her, like street furniture, like billboards. Right now our billboard would yell, _Two medical degrees and we live with Sherlocks, so eat this, Moriarty_! but she is oblivious.

John turns the handle while I cover him. I am none too convincing on the hysterics, I think, but luckily Moriarty has low expectations of me. John has one arm round me, mock comforting - he is far more convincing, a proper doctor, bedside manner. I never had that. Most of my time with the patients, they were unconscious. I give John the nod and he helps me to stand, draws me away to the edge of the room. I sink down to the floor as if overcome, and John goes over to stand with his Sherlock. A look passes between them, but I am not sure what it communicates.

My plan almost works. Moriarty describes our imminent suffocating death, yada yada, and then prepares to stride triumphant from the room. And then things go wrong. She gives Sherlock a chance to go with her.

I know he will not take it. He resisted her even when he thought she was Irene. Couldn't leave his work, even for the woman he loved. So I know that Sherlock is not having a change of heart.

No: he is accepting her offer in order to attempt some sabotage on the other side of the door. I scream. I plead. I beg him to stop and think, observe the last few minutes again in his head, me scrabbling at pipes on the floor. But he is resolute and does not even say goodbye.

That arrogance. That certainty that he can fix things, can protect me. It is going to get him killed, while I am trapped in here unable to help him.

John is unimpressed. "It's his decision," he tells me, and clearly he thinks Sherlock has betrayed me to save his own skin.

"It's not like that," I say as the door is locked again, Sherlock and Moriarty walking away. "He's going to try to stop her, he's going to get killed."

John touches the door contemplatively. "One swift kick and this will give in."

Sherlock's cousin springs to it. "You're right. Let's get out of here."

But before we can burst free to rescue Sherlock, the door crashes open again and he is thrust back into the room.

I fling myself at him. "You idiot!" I shriek and now the hysterics are a lot more realistic. I want to punch him but that would not help anything so I content myself with major glowering to stop the tears leaking out, tears of fury and relief.

Then we hear a voice. A man. The man behind all of this. The man to whom Moriarty, as much as we, is a puppet. The man who plays games with names and identities, who remains invisible, who never appears.

I think I know who this man is. Who controls what name is given to the baby? Only a parent. And I know of a parent like that, a serial absentee who nonetheless holds the strings.

The gas starts to flow and John and I reveal the plan. I'm tempted to give the gas a little time to work but my better self takes change and we smash the door down.

Sherlock looks at me as he understands what I did. Respect and shame mingle in his expression. Yeah. You should have trusted me. But he touches my arm as we walk along, and it is his apology, for letting me get kidnapped in the first place, for not being able to save me himself.

I sigh. I forgive him of course, there is nothing to forgive. We have this job. There is danger. Moving on. "You know who the person is," I tell him in a low voice. "The person behind all this."

He looks at me sharply. "You know too," he says. I nod. "Well then," he says, and goes to save Moriarty's life.

He carries her as if she is a child he has dragged from a burning building. He preserves her, even though she is repellent to him. She attempts seduction, even at this late stage, and he recoils, talks to me over her head.

Moriarty notices. Dislikes being discounted. Sees the thing she suspected all along - that Sherlock and I mean more to each other than mere roommates, mere colleagues. She thought she knew what that meaning was, a simple, cheap thing, but she was wrong. Now, in this echoing engine hall, she is seeing reality: Sherlock and I acting in partnership, trust and respect between us.

I catch her narrowed eyes, her pursed mouth. And when her henchmen reappear and we are once again looking at the muzzles of guns, I know that Moriarty will not miss.

I look at Sherlock and see that this time he has the plan. I step close to him. He cannot speak it, Moriarty is mere yards away. But he holds my gaze and places my hands on his chest. He wears his pea coat, a checkered shirt underneath it. No doubt some zany tee underneath that.

"Watson," Sherlock breathes, and slides my right hand inside his coat.

I keep my eyes on his face and try to understand. He holds still and waits for me.

My fingers inside Sherlock's coat. His eyes on me, tender, his voice low and intimate. As his hand closes over mine I draw a sharp breath. He has never expressed - would never express - his feelings for me. Our entire friendship is built around the blanks where we know but do not speak. Words only complicate our connection. And Sherlock must not break our rule, especially not here, with his cousin watching, with Moriarty sneering as she triumphs over us.

Moriarty looks nauseated as Sherlock clasps me to his chest. Sherlock's cousin is standing close to John, not touching, not speaking. They don't need to. And I already worked out their secret, and why John puts up with him in spite of his insufferable arrogance and his really irritating habit of being right most of the time.

Sherlock and I have a secret too, though it is one we have never acknowledged. Surely he will not expose it now?

But Sherlock does not express any mawkish sentiments. His hand directs mine to a small glass phial, the kind I would use with a microneedle. Some kind of drug, a weapon. I am to take it secretly and use it on Moriarty when appropriate.

I am happy to take on this task. Very happy.

Sherlock's eyes are intense. If this moment were real it would be unbearable. I kiss his cheek as if saying goodbye and he flinches. We do not do physical affection. Maybe we should, I think. If we could stop being sarcastic about it, it might be very good. He is willing enough, I know it. His willingness - a certainty in my life. And now I am also certain that - just once maybe - just for - fun - I'm willing too.

But this could be the end, and we have lost our chance.

I break free of Sherlock and stand tall. I need to get close to Moriarty now.

And she helps me. The light of jealousy is in her eyes. She grabs me, drags me around, sneers at me. The phial is in my fist. Moriarty produces a blade and will obviously go for an artery: that will be suitably messy, dramatic and final. So I crush the phial in my palm and shove it in her face.

She falls.

There is action, then, and the henchmen are overpowered, and the mysterious H who started all this is put back in his box. Sherlock sends his cousin away, shielding him from the truth, and then talks to H, threatens to expose him, and I take the chance to let H know what I think of him too, and then either H ends the conversation or Sherlock's cousin and John pull the plug, because he is gone.

There are a few minutes of silence. Sherlock wear his mask of neutrality, keeping emotion locked inside. His cousin watches him darkly. I have no comfort to offer. What can I say to alleviate this terrible knowledge, a hundred years of deliberate suffering? It is a relief to hear the low keening of British sirens.

Then everything is removal and recovery, as the police and ambulances arrive, and Moriarty is taken away and the old power station swarms with forensic investigators, but through it all Sherlock and I stand still and look at each other, and say nothing, and even in this bustle and noise I can hear his pain.


	6. Chapter 6

I am in a man's arms and the envy of every woman in sight, plus quite a few of the men. Music reverberates across the dancefloor and up through the soles of my feet, the feet of my dance partner. This man is tall, dark, undeniably handsome and he moves like a gazelle, every step perfect, his wrists and elbows and hips fluid and his body hot and sinuous against mine. We are attracting open-mouthed stares as I accept his challenge and give it right back at him. It's been that kind of day. And I have some moves of my own, although I don't usually bring them out to play.

Sherlock's cousin bends to me and speaks with his lips against my ear. "Your partner probably thinks I know nothing about love but he would be wrong."

"You use sex to get what you want," I say.

"I said love," he corrects me, and his eyes are half-lidded.

I shiver at how potent he is, up close, projecting confidence and control. "Meaning?"

"I'm going home in a minute. What about you?" His breath on my cheek, my ear.

John is standing a few feet away watching, arms folded, an expression of weary tolerance on his mild features.

"Are you offering? And _no_."

He chuckles. "No."

"Thank god. I thought my radar was seriously off."

He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. He really could be good if he put his mind to it. I suppose that is his point. "Your radar appears correctly calibrated," he says. He glances across the room. Sherlock is beside John, staring at us. I call him over but he does not move. "But is his?" whispers Sherlock's cousin, and I feel myself blushing and give him a peck on the cheek to distract him from this obvious truth he has uncovered. He is pleased by my discomfort, and smirking at Sherlock. I have rarely seen such blatant naughty thoughts in a man's eyes. "No time like the present, and after a case there is always a little extra frisson," he murmurs, and I go hot all over.

We stand a moment, arms around each other, and then he says, "I'm getting the look. Better go."

As I lead him by the hand off the dance floor I think, but how do I suggest anything to Sherlock?

He is not the kind of man who would want a discussion about it first. Words can never describe our relationship. And from our bouts at the brownstone, I already know I cannot take him in single combat.

I have always relied on spontaneity rather than seduction. But how do you tell someone that you want them, when they guard their personal space with frowns and flinches and twitches of intolerance?

Sherlock's cousin hails a cab and we all get in. I try a little unsubtlety, sitting right next to Sherlock, but he grunts and shifts away to lean up against the window, scowling out at the London night.

He is sulking. I try to get his attention with some nudges but he ignores me.

I sigh. _Sherlock, we have things to say to each other. And the main thing is, come to bed. It's time. Let's just do whatever and we can both feel better about this horrible day._

His cousin is lounging on the opposite seat with John, quite at ease, even playing a little finger footsie with John now that John has him back on the leash and firmly under control. And I cannot catch Sherlock's eye.

I elbow him hard and he turns and sees the lovers opposite. His face is a picture.

Did he really have no idea?

Gradually I realise that he must have thought I was being seduced on the dance floor. Oh god. And now he is hacked off about it.

Well. Actually that is not necessarily a bad thing.

The lovers get out at Baker Street. John is leading. I guess that is how it goes, with them. John looks as if he just goes along with it all, is passive and subservient... but he has his Sherlock quite in his hands. Sherlock clearly adores him, despite his spiky appearance. John, it seems, wears the trousers.

How would that work, with me and Sherlock? i have no idea. He has thrown himself into the empty space opposite, claiming to have known about his cousin all along. He is so full of it sometimes. I tilt my head and let him know this with a look.

He stares back blandly but he knows I got there first this time. Like I did with Moriarty.

"Sherlock -" The cab is too wide to reach across and touch his knee. But that is what I should do. Take the lead. - Not protest my adoration. He can keep that fantasy. But I should corner him in the elevator, embrace and kiss him and if it doesn't work out I can pass it off as revenge for his earlier attempt.

We get out at the Shard. Right. This is it. Say his name and kiss him.

I start to speak and then the world spins and falls.

He catches me, picks me up, bends his head over me and once again I am being cherished by a man, but this time he is genuine and afraid, his heart beating rapidly as he calls over the bellboy and they get me into the elevator.

He murmurs to me on the way up, "Watson, don't worry, straight to bed, it's over now and you can rest." Soothing me. I never thought he could do that.

I lie with my eyes shut and breathe him in, that old fashioned cologne he pretends he doesn't use, splashing it on as if by accident, as if we don't share a bathroom. His shirt is dry and rough, rasping my cheek. His neck is hot and his hair is fine and soft. All his different aspects and I cannot even see his eyes. His eyes, oh yes, if he lets you look then you can see it all - his hard strength, his fear, his humour, his grudging acknowledgment of contributions made. All of these keep me at his side, although I still don't know what keeps him at mine. I hope he thinks of me as his partner, his equal, his person.

I try to lift my arms as they lie around his neck but they are too heavy. Sherlock adjusts me carefully and leans back against the elevator wall. He is taking all this proximity in his stride.

He even cracks a joke about being newlyweds - carrying me over the threshold - but I am too zonked to reply. I hear the effort in his voice, the strain, at being light hearted, at being normal. He likes me to be strong. Maybe that is a clue, but I cannot grasp at it right now.

He brings me straight to the bedroom and onto the bed. Takes off my shoes. I surface to consciousness as he loosens the neck of my blouse, the top button on my jeans. He is brisk and matter of fact, his fingers doing the job and then twitching away.

I close my eyes again. The pillows are deep and soft. I am safe and Moriarty is in a police cell.

Sherlock is here, right here, and he did not give himself to Irene, did not sacrifice himself to save me, but is here and smoothing my hair from my forehead.

He does that for a long time. He has rough hands. He is textured, Sherlock. Signs of wear.

I drift.


	7. Chapter 7

I wake. The light in the sitting room is still on.

Sherlock is up, thinking. Irene? The supposedly mysterious H, obviously his own father? His cousin? No. There is someone else in all this, someone who brought us here. His aunt. The unmentioned part of the puzzle.

I take a shower and put on a clean tee and jeans. Lie down on the bed.

Sherlock creeps past me in the dark a while later and the shower goes again.

I sit up and after a battle with my conscience, watch him through the frosted glass. Strong shoulders. Lean body. Sturdy legs, the legs of a man who can run, or stand in place and fight.

But he cannot fight what has already happened. He can only try to forget.

Steam pours from the shower cubicle. He rubs his hands over his hair to squeeze out the water and then opens the door.

I flop back into the pillows. Caught watching him shower. That is way creepier even than sitting by my bed all night waiting for me to wake up.

He strolls past me naked, a towel draped around his neck. He stops to look at me and I have to close my eyes and rely on his night vision being ruined by the bright lights in the bathroom.

There's more. He comes over, the towel now around his hips, and lays his hand on my wrist. Counting my pulse. I lie thinking, _he is looking after me when it is him who has had the worse day._

He returns to the couch.

And suddenly I cannot stand it. He needs comfort. I wants to provide it. This is simple.

* * *

He would never admit to needing a hug, so I frame it as my own need. Amazingly it works. I thought he would allow me to hug him (after which I planned to improvise) but he goes one further and envelops me in his arms and pulls me on top of him on the sofa.

I lie there, my head awkwardly on his chest, feeling how hot he is, burning up. It's all the thinking. I snuggle a little. And it's a revelation, because he is good at this. His hands on me are still, no roaming (the opposite of what you might expect) and he rubs my scalp soothingly with his chin.

This could go on some while.

He rearranges me a couple of times. My head on his shoulder - better. His shoes off, his feet pressing around mine, keeping me warm. Nice.

I feel him relax. I wriggle up close to him. Can I caress him? Will he stand it, or will I find myself put aside and sent back to bed? I can hardly imagine that he would refuse any opportunity. I told him once he would never turn me down. I am still sure of it. It is just hard to select the moment to ask, to put my lips to his warm skin. And then...I notice. He is not just lying there. He is lying there seriously aroused.

Oh. Excellent. He is not immune to me, then. I had started to wonder. But no. Up close he admits I am a woman, and that my body as well as my mind provide some amount of interest.

This is a good moment, then.

I lift my head and kiss his lips, pressing myself against his chest and running my fingers around and over his shoulders.

He tastes of toothpaste, and I feel bad for having snuck a lemon bonbon from the bowl in the bedroom after my shower. I press my mouth against his again and encourage him to part his lips, let me closer, touch me.

His eyes are wide and surprised - and wary. I see fear of doing something wrong. Oh, for pity's sake.

"OK?" I ask, and it is bizarre because he never asks my permission for anything. Then again, he has never once introduced the possibility of actual intimacy into our dealings. That has been for me to do.

"Um -" is his only answer.

But he doesn't look unhappy, just bewildered and, cautiously, pleased. Good. This I can work with.

I take off his shirt. One of his slogan tees is under it. Most men I've known slept naked. But he is not most men, and anyway he was not asleep. He was thinking, until I appeared and tried to stop him.

After heavy hinting he removes the tee. Better. I kiss his chest and rub my face a little in the soft hair. He smells of shower gel, and man. Delicious.

His rough hands are on my waist, under my own tee. I wait, then blink at him until he grasps the situation. Then with astonishing speed and skill he strips away my tee and begins kissing my throat, my collarbone, every part I bring near, and I close my eyes and soak him up.

We get naked very quickly. There is no discussion. I do stop to check he is OK with this, and he tells me "Yes, yes to anything, Watson." _Anything?_ I place my lips where he cannot fail to notice and take his breathless shiver as a yes please. I smile and caress him every way I can think of until he is gasping and I am completely taken up with him.

After a while his eyes are closed and mine are open and I watch as I lead him deliberately to the edge of the cliff and then push him over it. He shouts out and grips me so hard it hurts, but he lets go the same moment and just clings on to me as I feel him tremble and shudder.

_Mine_, I think. _At this moment, you are mine and I am yours too, giving you this pleasure, bringing you oblivion, caring for you._

He holds me afterwards and strokes my hair and murmurs wordless gratitude into my hair, rubs my back, tentatively lets his hands travel over me.

His eyes are sharp and bright. Free at last. But he is not sure how to be, with me. He does not know, yet, that it is _Yes to anything_ with me too.

He has made me hot with his gasps and cries. He has made me extremely unsubtle.

I place his hand where I want it and give him a look. _Care for me. I know you can._

He moves with determination to the task. If he had sleeves he would now be rolling them up. He is all capability and eagerness to show off skill. I am pretty much ready to be shown.

But he is tender, too, and pauses to kiss me, his mouth saying what his voice will not, and although my eyes are closed, I am listening.


	8. Chapter 8

"Pretty good, you know that?"

"Not too shabby yourself, Watson."

I laugh. It is sweet that he calls me Watson. Even now. I watch as he licks his fingers and reaches around to fetch the comforter off the floor and drape it over us. Lucky this couch is the size of a limo.

"We could use the bed," I say.

"I don't really want to move," he says, and I get it. This moment seems imaginary. Transferring to the bed might disperse the contentment swirling in warm air and sweat all around us, might move his hands where they rest on my ribs, might shift my head from its place on his damp chest.

I shuffle onto my side and angle my head to look up through the glass wall into the London sky. Nothing is above us. Only planes. He hates planes. In the flight tomorrow I will hold his hand. Or maybe his thigh. That would probably be better.

Odds on he is already a member of the Mile High Club. If I've just thought of the world's best distraction for overthinkers, his superior brain will have come up with that solution long ago. It's not a terrible idea though. At the start of the flight the toilets will still be pretty clean. He could initiate me.

I chuckle again in mixed horror and mirth, and he smiles at me, studies my face, but does not ask.

He is my kind of man, as a man. And he has allowed me, tonight, to be my kind of woman.

"Sherlock," I say, an outbreath, a statement, a murmur of satisfaction.

"Mmmn." My sentiments echoed back to me.

We are limp with exhaustion and relief. This threshold was meant to be crossed, from the very beginning. Within one day I knew he interested me as more than a client. And working together, living together, of course things were bound to become intimate. When you are as close as we have become, it is inevitable. But it does not have to mean what people assume it means.

I do not see a frilly white wedding in my future. With Sherlock, or anyone.

I don't even see girlfriend-boyfriend stuff. I'm not sure what I do see, if I'm honest. But nothing conventional. I mean-

This man keeps bees on the roof. In New York.

I could put your liver back together, or install you a fresh one. But instead I am an amateur crimefighter.

Yeah, a down on one knee, solitaire diamond, trail-of-rose-petals deal this is not.

I stroke Sherlock's chin. His silver stubble. He has more silver than me, even though I'll reach fifty a little ahead of him. I hope we still trust each other then the way we do right now, at this moment.

Sherlock moves and puts his hands behind his head and narrows his eyes at the ceiling. He smiles, a catlike smile. "Comfy?" he asks, moving his right hand to cup my left shoulder.

"Yeah."

"Sleep would be sensible."

"It would." Especially for him. He has not shut his eyes yet this evening, and he spent half last night haunting London too.

"I am not a sensible man, Watson."

"I know." And with his right hand now travelling slowly down my spine, I am not feeling remotely sensible either. "We don't have any protection," I point out as the exploration continues. Some things do need to be said. Not everything can be achieved with emotional telepathy and meaningful looks.

"Room service," he says, smirking. "This hotel has five stars."

I make a face at him. Condoms on a silver tray. Would they bring them under one of those domed platters? He snorts when I suggest this. It doesn't stop his wandering hands though, or mine. Our fingers are becoming insistent. I roll, allowing easier access to everything. "I prefer creativity," I say.

Now _that_ gets a reaction. "Creativity," he says. "Noted." His breath is hot on my cheek, my throat, my leg.

"Sherlock-"

"Watson..."

We'll have to sleep on the plane.


	9. Chapter 9

I wake and find myself still wrapped in his arms. I run my hand the length of him and sigh a little. He is very fine, but I have to get up, we have to get up, because our flight is booked for today. I kiss his neck, and ease away from the sofa.

Sherlock grabs hold of me to stop me going. His eyes open and he is all fire and want. I smile, kiss him, and shake my head. Another time, maybe. Probably.

As we get ready to leave he is twitchy and uncertain. "It's OK," I tell him. "I know we have to work together." This assessment of our situation seems a little incomplete to him, I can see, but that's all it is. So we had a little fun. So what? He doesn't do love, not in the usual sense, and I know that. It's fine. We'll rub along together and things will simmer down, and maybe there will be more fun and maybe there won't.

Nothing else is said. Who wants a big discussion? Not me. But at least it doesn't seem like we've made fools of ourselves. It was a necessary thing. It was - not nothing - but not some soul-blossoming revelation either. I was pretty sure how I felt about him before, and I still am sure. He is Sherlock. That's all. I don't have ambitions to make him anything else.

Then he takes me to the top of the Shard and shows me London. He stands next to me, looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and I understand: he is apologising for the trip not being what he told me it was, for us not having had a chance to see any of London. Well, I am seeing it now. And it is wonderful. Grey and white and so many trees between the buildings. The Thames is a silver sheet in the directionless English greylight. I gaze and gaze from our perch in the sky, and he smiles and stares out too, although it must be as familiar to him as his own face. Maybe not from fifty floors up, though. Maybe he is seeing a familiar landscape from a new perspective.

As we get in the elevator something happens to confirm this idle thought. Sherlock stands close to me, closer than necessary, and I can feel his want, not a sex thing, a simple human want thing. His face is tense, trying to process the reluctant emotions.

Any other man - any other person - would just give me a hug or maybe, imagine, say something. Thanks for coming, Watson. But he told me yesterday that I was magnificent, and he does not repeat himself. Why would he need to? I treasure every accolade for the work. And the memory of us under the comforter is still pretty fresh, too. But Sherlock is trapped in this moment, with the urge to express battling his natural reticence and self-containment.

I feel it too. Yesterday - last night - this whole year has been a revelation in our lives. Things we've done, people we've known, and finding each other and this work - What can possibly be said about this gigantic change?

Nothing, that's what.

So I just take his hand and he does not tear his away but lets me do it, even clutches me back, and we stand with palms pressed together, avoiding a big conversation, acknowledging all the things which would be discussed, not looking at each other, standing in close contact and quite content. _Sherlock_, I think, and I can feel, _Watson_, coming through his skin to mine.


	10. Chapter 10

So here we are, back home. I will go up to bed in a minute, and perhaps eventually Sherlock will be sprawled under a blanket on the sofa. He dislikes his bedroom since Moriarty slept in it. He was never keen on conventional bedtimes anyway and now he has a reason to avoid that room.

Since we got back I've dropped a couple of hints about sleeping alone, or more accurately, about us sleeping together, but he has not responded. Either he never noticed them (not very likely) or he is not interested in a repeat. That would be a pity. We were good together.

But I am competing with the only person he ever loved. I don't intend to be an Irene replacement - never could be - don't want to go anywhere near that idea - but just by sequence, it has been her, and then me. No other women friends in between that I've been able to detect. So maybe it's a big deal to him. I get that.

He's my best friend. I trust him. He would not do something to hurt me on purpose. So this is not a ploy to deny me more intimacy. At most it is a ploy to dilute the situation back to how it was before - and that's fine.

And it may not be a ploy at all. Maybe he is just being sensible.

Sometimes, though, I can be reading, or sifting through papers, and I feel Sherlock watching me. When I look up, he makes no show of hiding it. Just looks at me, hollow eyed, and then turns away.

It's fine. We're friends. We've had a lucky escape. Neither of us is going to push for a declaration.

And maybe he is still processing it. I don't know.

I walk up behind his chair and put his coffee down on the red desk next to him. He mutters "Thank you," and does not look up. I peer over his shoulder at the scraps of the note left by this new kidnapper, and try to make sense if it - try to think laterally, to escape what is linear and obvious and to make the deductive leaps that Sherlock does so easily.

I must have been standing here four or five minutes, sipping my own coffee, staring at the heap of paper on the table. I have nothing. But it helps to know the evidence, even if its meaning is unclear. Then I can talk to Sherlock about it and maybe my conversation will spark something in him.

As I stand frowning, Sherlock's hand shoots out and grips my wrist. I jump. He holds my wrist for a moment, then lets go. He never looks up. No eye contact. "You OK?" I say. He waves his fingers and carries on peering at the papers.

I wait. His hair is sticking up all over his head. His sweater has a hole in one shoulder where he's been practising how the kidnapper must have rolled out of sight under a parked car. His mouth is pressed tightly shut. No words while he is thinking.

I let it be. Almost. I pause as I turn away to my own reading, and say, "I'm here if you need me." A reassurance, or if he chooses, another big hint.

No reply. That's all right. We exist in silences, and anyway, I am certain he heard me.

_The End._


End file.
